Recently I attended a screening of the 1976 film, “All the President’s Men”, for the first time. As I’m sure many of you already know the classic is about the Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who reported on and revealed the Watergate scandal to the United States with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman staring in their respective roles.
I am currently a
journalism major at Western Kentucky University with a strong interest in
Political Science so I was quite interested in viewing this film as you can
imagine. Like many others, I learned the basics of the Watergate scandal and
why it led to Nixon’s resignation, the attempted cover-up, Ford’s pardon and
you probably know the gist of it. However, I’d like to look a bit deeper into
Nixon and Watergate. The consensus taught in school that Nixon broke the law
and payed the price is true but there’s more to it than that. Beneath the wall
of scandal and obstruction lies a sacred value, loyalty, and it cost the Nixon
administration everything.
Years ago, I originally thought
that Nixon had ordered the break in at Watergate because I figured why else
would he cover it up? Nixon ordered no invasion of the Democratic National Committee’s
HQ. Five men from Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President broke in on their
own accord to commit illegal espionage. I’ve heard stories from a History professor
here at WKU that Nixon threw an ashtray against the wall when he found out
about the break-in after the five burglars had been caught red-handed by the
police. This was when the cover-up came into play as Nixon arranged for large
sums of money to be payed to the burglars as “hush money”. Nixon had a choice
here and it wasn’t necessarily one of good and evil. Nixon could’ve reported
the true reasons for the break-in to the police and had the men responsible
arrested without serious harm coming to his personally. Two of Nixon’s aides,
H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, who were also personally close the
president were major figures in the attempted cover-up. Nixon’s other feasible
option was to throw these two men (likely among others) under the bus if he
truly had no knowledge of the break-in prior to its inception. Nixon knew these
men, he knew them well and was even quoted as referring to Haldeman like a
brother after Haldeman was essentially forced to resign by Nixon in 1973 along
with Ehrlichman since the scandal was becoming clearer to the rest of the
United States. When Nixon resigned the following year, Haldeman asked him for a
full pardon which Nixon refused. Had Nixon dealt with his friends in an
equivalent manner after he learned of the break-in history would’ve turned out
much differently for the president at least.
Loyalty was what I believed
kept Nixon from turning in Haldeman and Ehrlichman prior to the reelection.
Nixon was very firm in his way of doing things and he was certainly loyal to
his aides as they were to him up until it was too late to pull either one out
of the fire; it’s just that Nixon was the last one to burn up until Ford saved
his ass that is.
The real tragedy of
Watergate isn’t just the cost of loyalty but the consequence of paranoia as
well. Nixon has been regarded as being exceptionally paranoid for decades as he
recorded nearly everything in the Oval office and that’s what truly led to his
downfall. Nixon was reelected by a record landslide in 1972 so any type of espionage
wasn’t necessary in the slightest sense! Nixon had the damn thing in the bag
but he just couldn’t accept it. He was so paranoid that he dragged out a whole
cover-up for a crime he didn’t order and even recorded nearly every discussion he
had about it.
You know some say he got Gerald
Ford as his VP because Nixon feared he would be kicked out of office and wanted
the next president to pardon him. Did he collaborate with Ford for a pardon?
Maybe yes and maybe no. All we really know is that Watergate created something out
of nothing. Nixon still would’ve been reelected but his loyalty and paranoia
got in the way and it cost him everything.
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